Mental Health of the Youth Population in Covid Times

Mental Health Policy

One mental health policy issue that is important in America right now is safeguarding the mental health of children. That is why the Mental Health Services for Students Act of 2020 was written (HR 1109, 2020). This is especially true since the lockdowns of 2020, which have worsened the mental health issues of young people, as can be seen by increased rates of reported depression and suicide; but in fact rates were already rising, as reported by Heid (2020): “Between 2009 and 2017, rates of depression among kids ages 14 to 17 increased by more than 60%, the study found. The increases were nearly as steep among those ages 12 to 13 (47%) and 18 to 21 (46%), and rates roughly doubled among those ages 20 to 21. In 2017—the latest year for which federal data are available—more than one in eight Americans ages 12 to 25 experienced a major depressive episode.” Thus, it is clear from the evidence that mental health among the vulnerable population of young people is something that needs to be addressed. Furthermore, this issue has only worsened since 2020 because more are more children have been isolated from peers as schools have closed and governments have placed restrictions on going out in public or meeting with people in private. As Liu, Bao, Huang, Shi and Lu (2020) report in The Lancet, quarantining children as a result of COVID-19, has presented a problem because companionship is crucial to the psychosocial development of children. Children need to be around other children to help themselves develop security and formulate their own identities (Fauzia & Mangunsong, 2020). This paper will discuss the need for an improved mental health policy with respect to COVID restrictions so as to protect the youth population.

The youth population is unique because it is a vulnerable population that will at some point become part of the adult population. It is inevitable that this should occur, and it is a change that cannot be said to be experienced by other vulnerable populations. Among minority populations there is no guarantee that they will ever stop being a minority population. Among the elderly population there is no hope of their ever dialing back the years. The youth population alone will change and become an adult population. That makes their development as young people all the more important. If they do not grow and develop rightly, they will enter into adulthood without any of the necessary qualities needed to be resilient, self-actualizing, and in possession of good mental health. Mental health for young people is, therefore, an issue that needs to be taken very seriously in America.

Already Congress has taken steps to address the mental health issues of children in schools—but in its own bureaucratic way. This is insufficient to really address the trauma that children are experiencing at an all-new level since the 2020 lockdowns changed the social order of the world. Today, people feel more isolated than ever; they are fearful of catching a disease; children are required by states to wear masks that hide their faces and their social identities in schools, where they are meant to interact with peers and socialize. Yet the COVID crisis and the government’s handling of it has created a new crisis in response: a potential mental health crisis for young people. Young people need to be able to interact with peers in meaningful ways, and if they are unable to do so it risks their developing any number of mental health disorders, from depression, to self-harm, to suicidal ideation, eating disorders, and anti-social behavior. Peers are important to youths, as they represent one of the essential sources of information for young people, as Bandura (2018) has pointed out.

The policy of HR 1109 does not do enough to address this situation, especially as the situation has changed drastically since the drafting of the policy. When it was drafted, the bill did not consider the psychological ramifications of COVID responses in schools and communities and how these ramifications might impact children. The policy proposal is good in the sense that it provides a way for schools to receive more funding so that they can have more psychologists, counselors and teachers in the school who are there to help children and to identify and prevent potential situations from worsening through direct intervention.

Yet the policy needs to do more to address the impact of lockdowns on youths. Much of the mainstream media is still focusing on fear mongering and this does not help the situation, as an entire generation of youths is now being brought up to fear others (this fear mongering is going on for 1+ now and there is a high risk that it will reach the levels of terror fear mongering like what the US experienced after 9/11). Children need to socialize in order to develop their psychosocial skills, and if they are taught by the media and by groups to avoid peers out of suspicion and to mistrust anyone who has not gotten his shots or who does not wear a mask, these youths will grow up with obsessive compulsive disorders, paranoia, and depression.